1.0The Sourcehttps://the-source.netrich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="RGNkLjlAn6"><a href="https://the-source.net/forrest-keaton-retires-from-rammelkamp-bradney/">Forrest Keaton retires from Rammelkamp Bradney</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://the-source.net/forrest-keaton-retires-from-rammelkamp-bradney/embed/#?secret=RGNkLjlAn6" width="600" height="338" title="“Forrest Keaton retires from Rammelkamp Bradney” — The Source" data-secret="RGNkLjlAn6" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(c,l){"use strict";var e=!1,o=!1;if(l.querySelector)if(c.addEventListener)e=!0;if(c.wp=c.wp||{},c.wp.receiveEmbedMessage);else if(c.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if(!t);else if(!(t.secret||t.message||t.value));else if(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret));else{for(var r,s,a,i=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),n=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=0;o<n.length;o++)n[o].style.display="none";for(o=0;o<i.length;o++)if(r=i[o],e.source!==r.contentWindow);else{if(r.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message){if(1e3<(s=parseInt(t.value,10)))s=1e3;else if(~~s<200)s=200;r.height=s}if("link"===t.message)if(s=l.createElement("a"),a=l.createElement("a"),s.href=r.getAttribute("src"),a.href=t.value,a.host===s.host)if(l.activeElement===r)c.top.location.href=t.value}}},e)c.addEventListener("message",c.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",t,!1),c.addEventListener("load",t,!1);function t(){if(o);else{o=!0;for(var e,t,r,s=-1!==navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE 10"),a=!!navigator.userAgent.match(/Trident.*rv:11\./),i=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),n=0;n<i.length;n++){if(!(r=(t=i[n]).getAttribute("data-secret")))r=Math.random().toString(36).substr(2,10),t.src+="#?secret="+r,t.setAttribute("data-secret",r);if(s||a)(e=t.cloneNode(!0)).removeAttribute("security"),t.parentNode.replaceChild(e,t);t.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:r},"*")}}}}(window,document); </script> https://the-source.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5.jpg702500By Kyla HurtPhotos/Submitted to The Source It was August 15, 1982. He recalls the date. Forrest Keaton joined the ranks at Rammelkamp Bradney in Jacksonville. Now, just a bit more than a week ago on June 30, having earned it, he has retired. Forrest Gene Keaton grew up in Southern Illinois in the then-populated 900-person village of Valmeyer. After high school, he graduated summa cum laude from Bradley University in Peoria in 1974 and was commissioned in the Air Force through the ROTC program. Keaton took an educational delay to go to law school, however, and graduated in 1977 with his juris doctor degree cum laude at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign. “From probably the time I was in junior high or in high school, I kind of thought that’s what I wanted to do … to go to law school … There were a couple of attorneys in the local area … who I didn’t know personally but they’d always been spoken of highly and I thought maybe that’s something I should try to emulate.” After finishing law school, Keaton went on active duty with the Air Force for five years, spending the first two years at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. Keaton says, “I was serving as a judge advocate, which is military parlance for attorney and then was transferred to Torrejón Air Base in Spain where I served three more years until I left active duty … and in that interim, at Columbus, I met my future wife, Helen [DeSpain].” In Torrejón, Keaton was the deputy staff judge advocate of the 401st Fighter Wing. Keaton explains, “I had planned to leave active duty, so in February of 1977, I came back to the states and interviewed at a couple of locations that were looking for an associate attorney, one of which was here [Rammelkamp Bradney] and was offered the position here and have been here for the last 38 plus years.” “Growing up in a small town, I had no desire to be in the Chicago suburbs and commute every day … that’s just not what I was looking for. I was looking for a smaller city.” At the time that Keaton came back to interview, his wife was waiting in Spain and close to five months pregnant with their first child. Forrest Keaton returned to his wife in Europe and told her he thought he would take the job in Jacksonville. Now, as the DeSpain family comes from Kentucky, Helen Keaton saw Central Illinois and thought of cornfields. Forrest Keaton maintains that her first question was if there were any trees in Jacksonville. “I told her, ‘Yes, there is the town tree. It’s on the public square and every Arbor Day, they gather around it and they recite Joyce Kilmer’s poem, and they go home having seen the tree,’” entertains Forrest Keaton. “And I think she believed me for a couple of days,” says Keaton amusingly. He continues, “That’s how we ended up here … she’ll want me to tell you the other part of the story. Our daughter, Lindsay, was born July 10. We left Spain on July 28 … flew to New York … somehow, we took a bus … from JFK [John F. Kennedy International Airport] with me, Helen and our 18-day-old daughter to … New Jersey where we had shipped our orange Volkswagen Beetle that we had driven in Spain, loaded everything that we had brought into it … drove to McGuire Air Force Base … I out-processed from the Air Force, and we proceeded to drive cross-country to Kentucky first, in late July and early August, in the unairconditioned Volkswagen Beetle with our 18- or 19-day-old daughter. We then came on to Illinois.” The firm had arranged for them to stay at the temporarily vacant home on Parnassus Place and next door, 1235 Parnassus, happened to be for sale. They spent their first 13 years in Jacksonville at that home. Forrest and Helen Keaton have three children. Helen Lindsay [Keaton] Jones was born in 1982, Charles Grant Keaton in December of 1986 and Forrest Scott Keaton in 1990. Fun fact: each is accomplished and goes by their middle name (Mom and Dad’s choice). Lindsay is an 8th grade teacher living in Austin, Texas, with her husband; Grant is the CEO of a startup cybersecurity company, living in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife; and Scott is unmarried, working for the National Basketball Association in Shanghai, China, (appropriately as a 6’5” left-handed man with a 100-mph tennis serve). Keaton heard about the job opportunity with Rammelkamp Bradney from a University of Illinois placement newsletter he had received while in Spain. He explains why he ultimately accepted their offer, “It seemed to be a right fit for me. As I said, I didn’t want to commute … It just seemed like the right size city and a fit for me.” On August 15, 1982, Forrest Keaton started his practice, uncommonly jumping right into a murder case as the only public defender at the time had stepped back claiming a conflict of interest. Back then, even a criminal case could be handed off to an associate. Keaton was that associate. He chuckles, “That was my introduction to trying a case to jury in Morgan County … baptism by fire.” During his time at Rammelkamp Bradney, Keaton concentrated in corporate, utility cooperative and insurance law. “Initially, most of my practice would have been with Bob Bradney and Larry Kuster, in particular. I did a lot of litigation and insurance defense work, in which they were very much involved, so I learned from practicing with them,” he says. That type of work took up the better part of 20 to 25 years, thinks Keaton. Ted Rammelkamp, Sr., had done work with several electric cooperatives and as he was moving into an of counsel position, Keaton recalls, “I think it was late in 1985 when he grabbed me … and said, ‘You...